


Borrowed Masks

by tokaku



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, M/M, Mental Anguish, Post-Game, ShuAke Halloween Week, gore and fluff, smut in day 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-25 03:06:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12521560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokaku/pseuds/tokaku
Summary: A series of one-shots for ShuAke Halloween Week.Day 1:Akechi's last job for Shido ends with betrayal, but Akechi saves himself. He probably has Akira to thank.(shapeshifter au)Day 2:Akira's visit to Akechi's home goes in an unexpected direction.(vampire au)Day 4:Akira and Akechi meet again years after the events of the game.Day 5:To keep the game fair, both Wild Cards receive a guide.





	1. Day 1 Shapeshifter

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to try participating in the ShuAke Halloween Week, but I didn't finish writing for every day. Still going to post what I finished here, so I hope someone enjoys reading them.(^__^) Please check out the other works that are being posted on https://shuakehell.tumblr.com/

Day 1 **Shapeshifter** /fears and phobias

 

_”You think I didn’t know? You’re so much like your mother.”_

The betrayal, when it came, was in the form of a bullet fired by a low-level grunt. Goro hadn’t been shot in the stomach before, and when he fell to his knees, he stayed there. The pain made it seem not only hard but impossible to move; a feeling of intense pressure spreading, lead in his veins and anger cold with fear. Shido Masayoshi, his father, _knew_ him.

_Of course_. Goro would have laughed if he was able to. _Of course._

Goro lifted his head, squinting more than glaring. Shido had crossed the room, moved beyond his desk to stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows to look out at the cityscape as if it was just another day. The blinds were shutting them away from the world slowly, and only when they were completely closed did Shido turn again, as if only then, without the distraction offered by everything else, was Goro’s death worth any sort of attention. 

Another man entered the room with a drop cloth, and spread it out behind him so his body won’t stain the hardwood floor. The gunman moved casually closer, gun lifted to point at his forehead.

That part, at least, was laughably unprofessional.

The gunman had brought himself too close. His muscles didn’t want to cooperate, but Goro pushed through the pain, hoping that his training made up for not being in the best condition. His hand closed around the muzzle of the gun, keeping the gun from going off, and immediately after, he twisted the gun from the man’s grip. Instead of holding on to the gun, he let it skitter across the floor, where it landed almost at Shido’s feet like a rejected toy.

There was a pause. No one seemed especially worried. What he’d done had the air of a tantrum, loud but ultimately useless. Goro was beyond caring. He pushed his fingers in his stomach, grunting in pain as he dug the bullet out with his nails. His breathing was erratic. Goro closed his eyes, rolled the bullet between his thumb and index finger almost absently as he got his breathing under control. Finally, he reached behind him to put the bullet daintily on top of the drop cloth. 

“Thank you,” the man who had carried it in said. 

“You’re welcome.” Goro tried to muster up a smile, to go with the airy response, but gave up when he started shifting. 

It was easier this time around; the monster had wanted out the moment Goro was wounded, and it ripped itself out of his skin, all bristly spines, fur, and shadow, bones snapping as they reformed. Goro didn’t even get to watch Shido’s expression as it happened, too busy curling in on himself, his vision awash with more distracting colors. A scream tore its way from his throat, with the low threatening echo of a growl. 

Goro fell onto his hands and spat out his teeth, which looked starkly white against the rich brown of the polished floor. While his fangs were still pushing themselves out, Goro was aware of one of the men running for the door, the other diving for the gun. He tackled the running man, pinning him to the floor just as his claws finished elongating. More gunshots; his body absorbed the bullets. Everything was pain by that point, but he was also very, very _hungry_.

Goro pressed a finger to the base of the skull of the man underneath him and sank it in without pausing. The man stopped struggling immediately, mouth frozen open as he lay on the side of his face. He sprang at the man with the gun this time, almost biting his arm off. The man had been shouting since he’d fired the barrage of bullets earlier, and didn’t stop until Goro closed his mouth over his face. He snapped his mouth shut. 

Blood poured in his mouth in a warm, almost steady flow. He could have stayed there for minutes or even hours if that were possible, just letting the blood trickle down his throat to get more of that human flavor. But then his eyes fell on the remaining occupant of the room, and he was abruptly more of Goro again.

He didn’t imagine it would be so easy. Goro reached out with one clawed hand and gripped Shido by the neck, lifting him up and away from his desk. Shido’s shock was closer to outrage, his face set in a disbelieving snarl. Goro’s fingers tightened around Shido’s throat. Shido tried to say something, mouth opening and closing for a moment with no sound, his eyes wide. His hands scrabbled against Goro’s arm.

Goro felt the strange impulse to jerk away, as if getting touched by Shido was damaging him somehow, when killing the other men hadn’t made him feel anything. He threw Shido across the room. Shido’s body met the wall with a wet splat. It left blood on the wall, the blood smudged closer to the floor when Shido’s body slid down.

Goro shuffled back to the body of the first man. He nosed at the still body before deciding to start with the uncovered head. Then he was tearing the flesh up, chewing thoughtfully. Rather than horror, there was a sense of fullness and peace from this. Goro felt himself falling asleep.

\--

He woke all at once, his eyes snapping open, confused at first because of the absence of pain before he questioned why he was expecting it. The memory returned slowly, incomplete and with the unreal cast of a dream. He did remember Shido’s face, in the end, the empty slack look that somehow brought no satisfaction. Goro balled his hands into fists, nails cutting into his palms. 

There were restraints around his wrists, tying him to the bedframe. Akira was sitting on the floor, back leaning on the edge of the bed. He must have heard Goro stirring, because he moved, turning his face to look at him. Akira set his book down on the floor. 

“You’re awake,” Akira said. A meaningless observation. Of course he was awake. The lack of judgment in his voice was completely terrifying.

“A…kira.” Goro found he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering, some unthinking panic left because of earlier. He closed his mouth.

“Do you need to be sick?” Akira asked, standing up and stretching languidly. He snapped open the restraints, giving Goro a smile as if he was only asking about what he wanted for dinner.

Goro pulled his arms down slowly, rubbing feeling back into his wrists. “Did I… did I eat someone?”

Akira shrugged. “Kinda, yeah.”

“Then I need to be sick.” Goro pulled himself up the bed, shaking away the comforters Akira must have piled over him. He realized how cold he felt when they were gone, and his limbs were shaking almost uncontrollably. That seemed to be the pattern after a transformation. Goro would adapt, like he always did. 

Akira must have changed his clothes while he was sleeping. Goro was now in a starch white shirt with long sleeves: Akira’s shirt. The fresh laundry smell was calming. When he lifted the shirt up, arms protesting even that hardly demanding movement, he saw that there were no marks left on his stomach or anywhere he could see on his torso. Which meant only one thing: he did eat somebody.

When he stood up, gingerly making his way to the bathroom, Akira followed. 

“Was it…” Goro swallowed, the panic cresting for a long moment. He rode it out, closing his eyes briefly before shaking his head. It was useless to quest for those memories. “Shido?”

Akira’s answer was succinct. “He’s dead. You didn’t eat him.”

“I see.” If he had, he’d need more than bleach to clean his insides. Just thinking that half of his genes came from that man was enough to make him hate himself. He didn’t need the added nightmare of _using him for nutrients_ , as impersonal as that sounded in his head.

Goro knelt in front of the toilet bowl. After a moment to compose himself, he slipped two fingers in his mouth until they touched the back of his throat. When the impulse to gag came, he didn’t fight it. He tried not to look at the vomit beyond a short glance that showed him clumps of hair and what looked like pink bone marrow, and flushed it when it felt like there was nothing left in his stomach but a painful hollow. Akira handed him wads of tissue paper to wipe his eyes and mouth with.

Goro cleared his throat. It hurt to swallow. “How much trouble am I in?” 

“Futaba’s taking care of it,” Akira said. “We’d owe her a favor.” He didn’t wait for Goro to stand on his own, pulling him gently up by the arm and guiding him back to the bed. Akira sat down on the bed first, and looked at Goro expectantly. Goro sighed but complied, climbing the bed and curling up next to Akira with his head resting across Akira’s thighs. His legs were mostly lean, firm muscle, so it wasn’t very comfortable. But Goro has had harder pillows, so it wasn’t that bad, either. The whole point was the warmth though, which Akira infuriatingly understood. Goro curled his fingers around one of Akira’s thighs. Akira covered him again with the blankets. 

“You could have waited,” Akira said. If that was his only reprimand, it was a little unnerving in its simplicity. Akira was the one who had bitten him though, and he’d been at this for years. He probably had his own share of mistakes, even with Futaba’s genius and Morgana’s guidance. Still, this incident must be hard to cover up, what with Shido being just popular enough for his disappearance to attract media attention, which generally meant more attentive police.

“Shido’s not going to disappear just yet. Someone’s going to act as a stand-in. The main point is the room’s been cleaned. No bodies, no crime scene: no crime.”

“Hmm.” Goro was starting to feel sleepy again. Akira moved slightly, touching Goro’s head and carding his fingers through his hair. Goro almost fought it, a memory from his childhood harshly superimposing itself over the present: someone’s hands in his hair, yanking hard. But Akira’s fingers remained gentle, only untangling the strands that were clumped together. 

“Akira,” Goro called, suddenly feeling a bit lost, like a child not yet ready to fall asleep but knowing they can’t fight it. He clutched at Akira’s leg. “Wake me up if I…”

“Okay,” Akira said, softly, with his hands still in Goro’s hair. He leaned down, kissed the crown of his head. “Good night.”


	2. Day 2 Trick or Treat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The M rating for this is because of this story. There is sex in this. I'm sorry.

Day 2 **Trick or Treat** /cage of bones

 

Akira smiled when he saw Akechi’s window was open. When he reached for it, though, he had to pull his hand back with a reflexive hiss: purification salt. The good kind, even. That generally meant Akechi didn’t want to be disturbed, which meant he’d either had a bad day at work, he was pissy about something Akira did, or he was having a midnight pancake run. Akira didn’t remember doing something in the past few days that warranted a sulk, so it had to be one of the other two.

“Akechi,” Akira called, still hanging from the wall. He’d been inspired by a video he saw of a cat climbing a wall, and since then it was his preferred method when visiting Akechi’s apartment. It usually worked, too, but not if Akechi broke out the salt. “Akechi-san, Akechi-dono, Akkun, Gororin…”

Akechi’s hand appeared first, slapping down on the windowsill. And then he pulled himself up, and there was Akechi’s face. Akechi’s fluffy hair, when he hasn’t brushed it yet in the morning, rivaled Akira’s worst bed head. The skin under his eyes was dark almost to the point that it looked bruised. So in the three days Akira hadn’t seen him, Akechi had been overworking himself again.

“We’re not doing this tonight,” Akechi said. He was openly glaring; with Akechi, it was no masks before 4 a.m., which is why Akira made it a point to visit him late, when Akechi should still be sleeping. Akechi was always entertaining like this.

“I just lost an expensive shoe to a ghoul, my boss promised me a raise but didn’t deliver, and _I’m stuck with conveyor belt sushi_.” Akechi stressed the last one as if that was a criminal offense. All the while, Akira warmly noticed that Akechi was sweeping the salt from the window frame. Still muttering in irritation, he disappeared back into the room, probably to wash his hands in the sink. 

Akira pulled himself up the window. The salt was piled up on a blank piece of paper in the corner, and he ignored it in favor of flopping down on the bed. There was a displeased frown on Akechi’s face when he returned to the room and saw Akira had taken over his bed. Akechi stalked back to the bed, eyes set in determination, and leapt, obviously expecting Akira to move out of the way. Instead, Akira opened his arms. He saw Akechi’s eyes flash with something like panic and dismay when Akira easily caught him in the air, hoisting him up like Akechi was Akira’s pet cat, and then bringing him down to his chest to give him a good snuggling. Akechi didn’t stay still for this, and tried to dig the heel of his hand into Akira’s kidney. 

“Get off!”

“Maybe later, honey.”

“You always make things dirty somehow,” Akechi sighed. He stopped struggling, as if it was suddenly too much effort to move. Akira pulled him into a more comfortable position so they were both lying on their sides, Akechi’s back to his chest. When Akira ran his tongue down the nape of Akechi’s neck, Akechi reached down to pinch his arm.

“No biting.” The reminder was automatic. Akechi used to be more suspicious, and there was a time he didn’t allow Akira anywhere near his neck, but by this point he seemed only resigned to the fact that Akira liked to play. Akira gave Akechi’s neck a nip, not breaking the skin, and he felt Akechi shudder against him.

“I’m serious. I want to sleep, you know.”

“Rant about your work for a bit?” It was an honest offer, and Akira settled down to listen, forgetting Akechi’s neck for now. Akechi was quiet, fingers tightening on Akira’s arm.

“You’d find it boring.”

“Inside information on how the hunter association works?” Akira smiled teasingly, and tightened his hold on Akechi. “Yes, boring.” 

Although the only thing he really learned was that the association didn’t even give its members health benefits, and everyone but the officers seemed to be overworked. Akechi was on a self-destructive loop of going after the missions that were too hard for his peers, seeking acknowledgement, and then working harder when he gets it. Despite that, he hasn’t made officer yet, which proved to Akira that the association didn’t function all that well. He wasn’t just being biased; Akechi was one of their best hunters. Nepotism existed in all human organizations though, and all the old families held the higher ranks there as well. 

Akechi sighed again, but snuggled back against Akira. Akira was helplessly charmed. “I’m only surprised you haven’t used any information you’ve gotten from me to… further some no doubt nefarious goal.”

“Nefarious,” Akira echoed. Akechi pinched him again for laughing.

“All right, maybe not you.” Akechi turned in his hold. He was frowning slightly, when he raised his head to meet Akira’s gaze. “I’m surprised you didn’t consider this though: I might be using you.”

Akechi was tense, his eyes probing. He seemed smaller somehow, as if asking Akira to consider that possibility left Akechi vulnerable. Akira had to wonder why he even brought it up, if that was a source of insecurity for him. Their relationship worked so well because most of the time they exchanged banter and ignored all the ways this could go wrong.

Akechi was obviously expecting an answer now, though, so Akira pointed at himself. “Lone wolf,” Akira reminded him. “Can’t tell you about any organizations.” It wasn’t necessarily true, but he didn’t need to tell Akechi yet about the others. There was trust in this relationship, but Akira only trusted Akechi with himself, not with his friends. For his part, Akechi had lines that were just as clearly drawn; there was no mention of his two adoptive sisters, even if Akira was aware they existed.

That seemed to be enough for Akechi, at any rate. He ducked his head, and then of his own initiative, draped one arm over Akira and drew closer, until they were close enough he could feel Akechi’s breath against his chin. 

“You’re right. You’re useless as an informant,” Akechi said with a teasing smile. “Since you’re so useless, I should charge you tenant fees. You’re spending enough time here you’re certainly a drain to my resources.”

“Hey,” Akira protested. When he tried rolling Akechi onto his stomach, Akechi didn’t resist, though he did crane his neck to look at him over his shoulder. Akira sat back and put his hands on Akechi’s back. The muscles jumped slightly under his fingers. Akechi let his head fall back on the pillow when Akira started massaging him. 

Akira couldn’t help the feeling of smugness. “I help you relax, right?”

“Hmm.” The small sound was obvious assent. Akira had to steer his mind away from the troublesome direction it could go and to more wholesome things, like making sure Akechi would wake up feeling refreshed and not sore. The not sore part was important, Akira had to remind himself, when Akechi let out a soft moan as he dug his fingers in just below the shoulder blades.

Probably a few minutes in, Akechi stopped him by turning over, opening his arms to demand a hug. Akira willingly went, and for a moment they hugged and touched each other. It was a slow exploration for Akechi, Akechi keeping his fingers politely to Akira’s skin not covered by his clothes, while Akira had no compunctions about lifting Akechi’s worn sleeping shirt to run his hands up Akechi’s sides and roll his nipples between his fingers. Akechi bit his lip, and finally lifted Akira’s face with both hands. Akechi’s face was red. 

“Do you want to…?” Instead of continuing, Akechi lifted his arms above his head and bared his neck. The offer felt entirely innocent, and quite unlike Akechi. Akira swallowed. 

“Not sure I could hold back,” Akira said.

Akechi’s face was still red, but there was an almost calculating gleam in his eyes as he tilted his head more. “I trust you,” he said.

Even then, Akira was careful. He started just gently kissing Akechi’s neck, feeling every soft inhale. He played with Akechi’s nipples. Akechi’s toes curled with every twist and lick.

“Akira,” Akechi called, voice too shaky to be a warning. His hands fisted in the pillows. “Don’t turn this into sex… Just bite me.”

“Hmm? But you’re comfortable enough for this, right?” Akira let his hand trail down, to cup Akechi through his shorts, at the same time kissing his neck. He paused briefly. “See, you’re getting aroused, and I need all those happy hormones in your blood. Gives me something to feed on.”

Now he was giving Akechi a lecture on vampirism, which wasn’t _sexy_. But he thought maybe Akechi would like it. It wasn’t like Akira had offered him much information in return.

Akechi didn’t seem to appreciate it though. He pushed Akira’s mouth aside suddenly and yanked his head back like a watchful cobra, his expression less aroused and more annoyed. “Wait, so that time in my kitchen, or when we were just standing around, and you wanted a drink. _That_ was a sex thing?”

“Well, not exactly?” Akira laughed, awkward, because it totally was a sex thing. “Not always? It’s basically feeding on information. With sex, you create new experiences in the present, so you’re not absorbing information from the past. Draw on too much without giving in return and people start losing memories.” That was how that talk with Sojiro basically went, and Akira had been glad he hadn’t been the only one awkward in that conversation. Because Akechi inspired his inner know-it-all, he added, “If it had been about living blood, why do you think it’s possible for vampires to feed on other vampires?”

Akechi looked pensive. “So blood is only a conduit for that information? And the memory loss in most of the victims, where the victims don’t remember who attacked them. Vampires don’t have a spell to cause it, it was just a consequence of feeding?” When he looked up at Akira again, Akechi’s gaze was newly assessing. He was probably thinking of the times he’d given Akira some of his blood without the foreplay, how careful Akira had been about taking only a mouthful. “What about Walkers?”

That was an association term, but Akira knew what he meant. Akira frowned, but dived into the explanation. “Deliberately done by rogues. Humans die if you take too much of their blood and you don’t turn them. Some vampires don’t want family members but want servants. They keep humans away from stimuli and feed on them at regular intervals, just taking enough each time so those humans don’t die.” Then the humans lost more and more of themselves. Some things could be done for them after they were rescued, but they weren’t going to get any of the memories they lost back. 

“That’s cruel,” Akechi said. He didn’t look particularly dismayed though, only thoughtful like earlier. “Perhaps I can see the appeal though, of being given the chance to become a new person. There might even be people who went into it willingly, knowing what it was going to do. But it’s unforgivable if that change is forced on unwilling people.”

_Becoming a new person?_ Sometimes he didn’t understand Akechi. He wouldn’t have thought of it that way. “What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing important.” Akechi waved away his confusion, smiling blithely. He leaned back, more at ease now in a way that made Akira instantly wary. He was acting. Maybe he was nervous. “I was just thinking we should turn this into sex after all.”

“I… okay.”

“I trust you, Akira,” Akechi repeated. It made Akira feel warm, and his hands shook slightly with the giddy feeling of relief. Wouldn’t someone be more guarded if you told them how dangerous feeding could get? And they’d just been talking about Walkers. Akechi had to be completely aware of the danger, but he was still allowing it to continue. 

There were no words after; Akira forced himself to remain calm, but he could feel himself getting drawn into the pace Akechi wanted. Akechi bit his lip against a whimper, back in a beautiful arch, eyes meeting his only briefly before turning away, suddenly shy. Akechi was a mess of contradictions, pushing and pulling almost unpredictably, and sometimes he’d take the initiative only to pull back, needing some distance in the middle of things. Akira waited to see if that would happen this time, but Akechi reached for his free hand, brought it to his parted thighs with something in his eyes that Akira translated as permission. The handjob changed to something more.

“Akira…” Akechi didn’t quite whine, but his voice hitched. He lifted both hands to cover his mouth, smothering the other sounds he ended up making, eyes squeezed shut as Akira pushed in. Akechi hooked his arms around Akira’s shoulders, pressing Akira’s face to his collarbone. Akira gave it a brief kiss, then pulled away just enough to check if Akechi was still okay with it. There were tears in his eyes, but he didn’t seem hurt, just overloaded.

“Ah!” Akechi held on tightly when Akira started moving. He gave his own small hesitant thrusts up, but left it mostly to Akira. Akira had the distinct impression that Akechi didn’t know much about sex. The first time they did it, Akechi had approached it like a competition, which he didn’t lose only because it wasn’t a competition at all. He had no technique to speak of, and his observation skills didn’t serve him well when he was falling apart this way. 

But maybe Akechi just needed practice. Maybe that was the real reason he was allowing Akira to do this much. It was a depressing thought, and hard to hold onto when Akechi looked like that, unmasked and open.

“Akira,” Akechi whispered, and bit his lower lip again, shivering. He pushed Akira’s head down to his neck. “Don’t worry. Just… drink.”

Akira gave Akechi’s neck a final lick before he bit into the vein. 

The taste was like sensation as well, the blood on his tongue heavy with promise. It was Akechi smiling above a cup of coffee, Akechi with a cute little frown while trying to solve a crossword puzzle, just _Akechi_ in the most basic way. 

Akira pulled Akechi closer. It should be okay, to get a bit more. Just a bit more. He could feel Akechi’s heartbeat, rabbit-quick, Akechi’s hands holding gently to his shoulders before slipping down to either side of his head on the pillow. Akechi’s breathing grew a bit shallow, and he kept his eyes closed. Akira lost track of time, drinking Akechi’s blood, their connection impossibly close for a moment. 

Akira didn’t think he was drawing too much, but slowly he became aware that something seemed different somehow, _wrong_. Akechi’s heartbeat was too quick, and his skin seemed unusually cold, given their activities. Akira paused, stemming the flow of blood with his tongue before finding a corner of the blanket to push against the puncture wounds. He pushed himself up to look at Akechi. 

“Akechi?” 

Akechi didn’t answer. No, he seemed incapable of answering. Akira pulled himself out carefully, biting his lip at the feeling of almost wanting to continue despite that, and he shook Akechi’s shoulder.

He didn’t get a response. Stamping down the panic, because it wasn’t like Akechi had stopped breathing, Akira first tried cleaning himself up and then Akechi, looking up every now and then to see if Akechi would react to the wet rag. Akechi’s skin felt clammy to the touch, which certainly wasn’t the case when they started. 

_Shit_ , Akira thought. He didn’t think taking that much was a problem, but did Akechi not eat or drink at all? Was he anemic? “Shit,” Akira said aloud, when more shaking did nothing. Did Akechi just pass out, or was that a very bad sign? Akechi looked dangerously pale. But a hospital was out of the question. If the association heard, they would question how Akechi even got to that state. Given Akechi’s skill, it seemed more likely they would decide he was a traitor, and execute him while he was too weak to fight them off. Maybe Tae-san’s clinic, but wasn’t Akechi’s blood type rare? He didn’t think this was something she’d be equipped to deal with, and she’d need to report it.

Akira looked down at his own hands, which were shaking visibly. He could do it, he supposed. If he stripped away the surface fear, he was also curious about how Akechi would react, guilty that part of him actually wanted to create this very scenario. A more reasonable part of him wanted to wait, to see if Akechi would recover. This seemed like too big of a decision to make without Akechi’s consent after all, but Akira was also worried about being too late. 

Maybe it was simpler to apologize later. Akira went to the kitchen to get a knife. When he came back, Akechi still hadn’t moved yet. 

Akira knelt next to Akechi on the bed. He took a deep breath and cut his wrist with the knife.

 

\--

 

Akira was watching for the exact moment Akechi woke up. Akechi’s nose scrunched up first, as if he was fighting off a sneeze. And then Akechi blinked his eyes open, fingers twitching over the blanket Akira had pulled up to his chest. He didn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings for a moment, eyes still half-closed. Finally, his eyes found Akira at the foot of the bed, and he sat up slowly.

“What happened?”

Akira clapped a hand to the back of his head, tilting his head in a show of nonchalance that was entirely faked. “Oops?” he said eloquently. 

Akechi touched his own neck briefly, pressing at the twin wounds that were only dark fading points on his skin now. “You infected me,” Akechi said flatly.

“That might have happened,” Akira agreed.

“You have to take responsibility.” 

Akira could only stare for a moment. Akechi held his gaze, as serious as a bride, before his mask cracked. Akechi laughed softly, bringing a fist to his mouth to hide his smile. 

Akira twisted the strands of his hair in a restless gesture he was trying not to do too much in front of Akechi. Akechi honed in on things like that, on any sort of weakness, really. “I’m sorry for turning you?” Akira tried. 

He felt like they were talking from two different scripts. Right now, Akechi didn’t even look concerned about almost dying. He waved the apology off, as if Akira hadn’t spent hours waiting for him to wake up and being a nervous wreck. “I might have expected this outcome,” Akechi said.

“You… expected it?”

“If you were a less generous person, you’d say I engineered it.” Pushing the covers aside, Akechi crawled over to Akira on his hands and knees. Akira had pulled down Akechi’s shirt for him, but with everything else that was on his mind, he kind of forgot he hadn’t put Akechi back in his underwear and shorts. The view remained distracting even with what Akechi was telling him. 

“You’re a generous person though, so maybe you’d see it more innocently. I just happened to finish a major job and forgot to eat for a few days, and then when you came along, I didn’t warn you.” Akechi straddled him, looping his arms around Akira’s shoulders. He leaned down a bit to press his sly smile against Akira’s cheek. It didn’t feel like a kiss. “Sorry if you were surprised.”

“Try horrified,” Akira said after a while to think about what that meant. “You couldn’t have known I’d do what I did. Maybe you could have predicted I’d lose control a bit, but how did you know I would save you?”

“Didn’t I say? I trusted you.” Akechi rested his head on Akira’s shoulder. It didn’t seem to be a demand for closeness, this time, or an intimidation tactic. It felt more like an excuse to not meet Akira’s eyes. In the end, Akechi was shy about the truth. “I trusted you’d want to bring me back.”

Trust was starting to have very strange implications in their relationship. There were times when Akira hadn’t been sure they were even in a relationship, but this seemed too big to dismiss. Akechi had trusted him with his life. The manipulation to get there dulled when Akira thought of that, though he couldn’t help retorting, “You couldn’t have just asked me?”

“I’m sure you thought it would be romantic. But I assure you, there’s no way for me to ask for something like this.” Akechi lowered his eyes, fingernails biting briefly into Akira’s shoulder blades. Akechi admitted, “It would have been hard for me to… give up control, if I asked. It seemed easier to trick my way into it.”

That was honest, at least. Akira put his own arms around Akechi’s waist, pressed his nose against the hair behind Akechi’s ear.

“You’re cheating,” Akira told him, “But okay.” He let Akechi go, but Akechi chose to stay on his lap, probably appreciating the extra height it gave him. Akechi kept his hands on Akira’s shoulders, his expression neutral, and Akira realized that he was likely trying to hide the fact that he needed that to steady himself. Akechi was technically a newborn; he’d need to feed soon. If Akira wanted his questions answered, he probably needed to ask them now.

“So, what’s this really about?” As much as Akira wished Akechi was simply that interested in a trust exercise, he doubted that was all. Akechi became a hunter at fourteen. It wasn’t a lifestyle you just abandoned. Sojiro was a special case.

“I decided my goals deviated from the association’s.” Akechi’s tone was deceptively light. And then he added: “Shido Masayoshi defected.”

Incidentally, that was information Akira needed to report back. Sojiro wouldn’t be happy if he heard. They’d been afraid of this. Shido was a natural leader. Shido’s knowledge and charisma might just be enough to unify the rogues, while his greed and disregard for life were guaranteed to win them over.

“What does the association think?”

“They want to bring him back, offer him a higher seat. He’s too _valuable_ to lose.” Akira could hear the bitterness in that line. But then, Akechi had never lied to him about how he felt regarding Shido. And now he probably felt he needed every advantage to face him, that he even needed to turn himself into a vampire. If he was leaving the association over that, it meant he was leaving it as a traitor.

“You know, I just realized: justice is only revenge enforced by a system, isn’t it?” Akira asked.

The comment must have seemed like it came from nowhere. Under the mask of indulgent amusement, Akechi was wary, as if he was the one who couldn’t read Akira this time. 

Akechi sometimes brought up justice when they talked, but Akira always suspected he thought of it in more practical terms. At its root, justice _was_ just revenge dressed as something more acceptable. Both demanded payment for something wrong, but society had a voice regarding how justice was delivered, and with revenge, the victim decided the payment. So Akechi hadn’t entirely lied when he talked about his justice. He just didn’t tell Akira how invested he was.

Akira met Akechi’s eyes, hands encircling Akechi’s wrists, trying to ground him. “What do you want to do?”

Akechi paused. He seemed genuinely surprised Akira thought to ask. Akechi let his hands slip down from Akira’s shoulders, aimlessly pressing at his hips instead. Finally, he said, “I can’t let him get away.” His voice was sober. If they were both part of the association, this would be good-bye. But Akira had the luxury of more options, so he just nodded.

“Okay,” Akira said. He curled his arm around Akechi and looked up into his eyes. “Akechi,” he said, almost gravely, “Your job sucks. Let’s elope?’

Akechi laughed, eyes clear with the knowledge of what Akira was offering. This was more than safety in numbers; Akira was giving Akechi his trust in turn. For a moment, Akira was afraid Akechi would reject it. But Akechi pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes with a small smile. There was tension unwinding from his shoulders like a loose thread.

“Thank you,” Akechi said quietly. “For being here.”

“You need someone to make these bad decisions with you,” Akira responded glibly. He saw Akechi lick his lips like he wasn’t aware of what he was doing, and was reminded that Akechi hadn’t eaten yet. After a pause, in which he tried to decide whether he should call Sojiro first, he pressed Akechi close and let his hands wander where they would. Akechi’s mouth opened on a soft sigh. 

It was night again when they left for Akira’s safehouse.


	3. Day 4 Asylum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went with "asylum" as "sanctuary," and only later realized that wasn't scary and the prompts were meant to be scary, so I probably read the setting wrong. This is a post-game scenario.

Day 4 Twelve o’clock/ **asylum**

 

Akira saw Akechi again six years after the incident and around one year after he returned to Tokyo. He can’t claim it’s an accident.

Something about that conclusion, with Akechi proclaimed missing in the real world, a case to neatly label and file away, just didn’t fit the complicated person that was Akechi Goro. The bulkhead, the two shots that rang out. Oracle confirming that she couldn’t sense the presence of either the cognitive Akechi or the real one. Something about all those things put together was suspicious.

But there had been no time to check, and when things were finally resolved, only plenty of time to think and no way to check.

Thoughts like, for example: Oracle hadn’t been able to sense Akechi initially either, when he’d waited to ambush them. 

Or that maybe there was a way to force-quit the Metaverse which they just hadn’t found yet before it became inaccessible to them. Although Morgana’s knowledge was helpful, that knowledge wasn’t complete. And Wild Card abilities could manifest in seemingly different ways.

With his ability to control Shadows, Akechi didn’t have to worry about the Shadows that he’d trapped in the room with him, only the cognitive version of him. But the two shots made it easy to draw the conclusion that they’d killed each other. 

The suspicion continued to nag at him anyway. 

That’s why, when Akira had his family life in order and returned to the city, he tracked down any rumors related to the missing detective. But when he approached Nijima Sae again, she became tight-lipped with information. She must personally disapprove of what he was doing. He assumed Makoto heard about what he was up to, except there was nothing from the other Phantom Thieves. She was either not telling them, or they were being sympathetic and pretending that they didn’t know their former leader was obsessed with a dead boy.

After some false leads, he finally found Akechi in the red-light district in Shinjuku, talking with that scruffy romantic who’d always had good things to say about him. The scruffy romantic looked more respectable now, with a tailored suit and fashionable glasses, but the way he looked at Akechi, that was the same soft expression he had when he talked about him in the past.

Akechi looked older, of course. His hair was shorter, too, framing his face but not covering his ears or neck. He still looked too thin to kick for the soccer team. The flashy clothes he was wearing couldn’t have been further from his pristine detective prince image. He looked like a host or a thug. Six years from the incident and away from the public eye for that long, he doubted anyone else in Tokyo could recognize him.

That was it then. Akechi’s fresh start, which Akira had seen now for himself. He could smile and move on with his life without the weight of failing to save him on his shoulders. 

It somehow didn’t work for him. Akira wasn’t even thinking before he was cutting the conversation between the two short, getting a vice grip on Akechi’s upper arm once he was close enough and pulling him wordlessly away. The man behind them called out a droll ‘good luck.’ Akira had no idea what he imagined this situation was, but he was technically kidnapping someone he hasn’t seen in six years. Akechi didn’t seem surprised though, just resigned.

Akira was somehow able to haul Akechi all the way back to his apartment. The destination at least seemed to surprise Akechi, and his eyes widened when they stopped at Akira’s door while Akira fished for his keys. He didn’t protest when Akira pushed him inside, instead looking around the living room, taking in the bookshelf crammed mostly with mythology books, the sparse furniture, and the boxes of takeout on the low table that Akira hadn’t gotten rid of yet. 

There were also two or three empty bottles in the corner of the room. Akechi looked at those with a slight frown. He probably thought Akira had turned into an alcoholic. Akira would be more touched with the concern if it didn’t seem to be laced with judgment.

“So that’s your work?” Akechi asked, gesturing at the books on the shelf. His voice, that was new. Or at least different from the one he remembered well. It was lower for one, closer to when they’d last seen each other. But there was no thread of madness or desperation this time. A quiet, smooth voice, with a faintly sharp edge that could probably sound curt or aggressive. Akira realized he’d probably trained it out later, and this was how Akechi spoke when he was relaxed. 

Akira would have thought this situation was far from relaxed. 

“To be honest, I’m a bit relieved,” Akechi muttered, as if in answer to Akira’s inner thoughts. “I suspected, when you moved back to Tokyo. This is what this is about, isn’t it? Closure.” He said the last word with the echo of something else Akira couldn’t place. Akechi sounded positively giddy. 

Akira released his breath. Stepped back to an unthreatening distance. He toed off his shoes and looked at Akechi until he cautiously did the same. Akira then walked deliberately to the kitchen and got them drinks from the refrigerator. Apple cider, because he didn’t want to be judged by Akechi of all people about his alcohol. He motioned for Akechi to sit, and Akechi slowly folded himself to sit in front of the low table with his legs crossed at the ankles. Akira returned with the drinks, handing one to Akechi by pressing the cold edge of the can against what was visible of Akechi’s forehead. 

“Let’s try this again.” It wasn’t a conciliatory gesture, and Akechi knew, from the way his gaze sharpened. Akira wanted him off-guard, and one way to do that was to restart the conversation. One corner of his mouth pulled up slightly, and Akechi sat up straighter, rolling his shoulders out of what was probably an unconsciously defensive stoop.

“Is that what you’re currently working on?” Akechi nodded again at the books, narrowing his eyes and reading the titles on the spines. Akira had one book sitting open and heavily bookmarked on top of the table, as far from the boxes of takeout as it could be. Akechi had bypassed this for an obvious reason. Akira took his own seat in front of it and ran his finger along one line on the open page, not really reading it. Akechi’s eyes refused to follow the movement. 

“I translate text from English to Japanese for universities.” It was freelance work he could do at any time, and it also didn’t pay very well. He didn’t tell Akechi that he used his Metaverse money to even get this far. At least he had amassed a comfortable sum, with the way he kept returning to Mementos after Akechi had ‘died.’ “Right now, I’m translating a book on Norse mythology.”

Akechi’s posture hardly changed, seemingly open and alert. He gave a plastic smile, fingers pressing against the tab of his canned drink. “I see.”

“Loki suits you very well.” The off-hand comment made Akechi grit his teeth, but he kept the smile. Akira watched his reaction, trying to know Akechi again. The distance of six years was too much to assume this was strictly the same person. 

Akechi was likely drawing his own conclusions about Akira’s motive, but he played along by responding. “If it bothers you, I can’t use either Persona anymore. Ma… Nijima-san explained that you had erased Mementos.”

So they had talked before, and _Makoto_ of all people had decided Akechi needed that explanation. The Nijima sisters’ silence was starting to make more sense, but he still didn’t understand it fully, so Akira pushed. “You didn’t help.”

“You can say I was a bit _indisposed_ when it all happened.” Akechi’s laugh was hollow.

Akira paused. There’s a grain of cold anger that remained stuck in his throat, mostly from Akechi’s disappearance, but it was there for so long he could ignore it and think. “You didn’t remember, did you?”

Akechi took a steady breath. “Why don’t we start from the beginning.”

The beginning was also the end. And at that time, Akechi had lied even when he was being the most honest Akira had seen him. They were both boys. Maybe he could now forgive Akechi for it.

“You ran away,” Akira still found himself saying. He remembered that scene. Akechi’s deranged smile, and then that real expression of anguish. Part of him, a part he was trying not to acknowledge, wanted to see that expression again, wanted to confirm it. He wanted to have the real Akechi Goro, when probably even his name wasn’t real. 

It was dangerous, to think that Akechi owed him the real him. Only sometimes, Akira indulged himself by thinking about it, of being allowed to see Akechi’s true face all the time. To be the only one to have that kind of connection with him.

It was an addicting thought. He needed to be careful.

“All right,” Akechi acquiesced. “We’ll start with that. If I may ask, though: how did you know?” He seemed genuinely curious, abandoning the drink to lean his elbows on the table and shift forward slightly. “To be honest, I couldn’t have predicted my own actions, because I didn’t know until that moment what I was going to do.”

So he was acting erratically, even to himself.

Akira sighed, and pushed the tab of his own drink open more aggressively than was warranted. “You were stalling.” That was what felt wrong about the scene. The words fell from his mouth with the bitterness of an accusation. 

“You had a free shot. You could have killed your cognitive double before anything else needed to be done. You didn’t need to get the shutters closed. You weren’t protecting us. Or maybe you thought that at the time, and we obviously were meant to think that. But you could have stopped those Shadows with your power. The only enemy there was _you_.”

Especially after they’d finally encountered Shido in his palace, Akira realized Shido thought of Akechi as weaker than he really was, so it made sense that his cognitive version of Akechi was also weaker than the real thing. 

“I see.” Akechi nodded. He seemed to be listening very raptly, his eyes shining, like his actions being read that way didn’t bother him in the least. But then, Akechi, who was the biggest liar Akira knew aside from himself, had always valued this sort of honesty. It was the same with their meeting in the TV station. “When you say it like that, yes, it seems obvious that I was stalling. I didn’t think of it in those terms at the time though.”

“What were you thinking?” Akira asked. He didn’t mean it as a rebuke; he needed to know. Akechi seemed to pick up on that, and hesitantly reached for his drink again.

“Well, I was…” Akechi laughed, mouth pulling into a wry grin. “The acceptance your teammates gave me that time was… overwhelming. And alarming, from an outsider’s point of view.” Akira shrugged. He hadn’t told his friends to react that way; they’d decided on their own to acknowledge Akechi’s existence, the ugly side and the polished side. He wasn’t going to tell them to react with some _healthy_ hate. 

“That you’d still reach out to help when I would have given up on myself. You see, there was no plan for after that man. It was always going to be the end.” 

When Akechi had fought them after making himself go berserk, he did say something about taking them down with him. His desperation had pushed aside any self-preservation. But even before then, he’d thought only of pushing Shido down from the highest peak of power, even if that meant killing himself in the process. The stubborn pride that must have given his life meaning could only take him that far. Akechi must have decided long before they met that there was nothing to stay for after he’s taken his revenge. 

“I was cast away numerous times. An unwanted child. There was always going to be no hope for someone like that.” Akechi’s fingers closed around the can, condensation probably chilling his fingers. He wasn’t wearing gloves. “But your friends, made me want to live.”

Akechi made it sound like he was admitting to a huge flaw. Akira thought it was a very lonely way of thinking.

They allowed the silence to stretch. Akira drank from his can. Akechi went back to studying the books on the shelf, eyes stopping at the slim volume of the Featherman manga adaptation, which probably seemed out of place. Akira wasn’t reading it strictly because of Futaba. But then, the mythology books weren’t for her benefit either, although she helped him get some of them.

“So you needed time,” Akira finally said, immediately getting Akechi’s attention back. Akechi nodded. 

“I wasn’t very aware of what I was doing. You stopped my rampage. It can be disorienting, afterwards. I was going to start crying, or do something equally shameful.” There’s color in Akechi’s cheeks, as if simply remembering it had been a possibility was embarrassing him. “I didn’t think it was what your friends wanted, or what I wanted them to see.”

“You didn’t think about my reaction?” It was teasing, mostly. But Akira was curious, too. When they met as enemies, Akechi had certainly not held back against him. His attacks on the others had been mostly to get them out of the way so he could get at Joker. A singular focus like that was flattering in a way. 

Morgana would probably say, exasperatedly, that Joker loved living life on the edge, and that _Akira_ was being a dork. 

His question seemed to have caught Akechi off-guard at least. He didn’t stammer out a reply, but stopped and honestly seemed to think about it. Finally, he laughed. “This might seem strange, but I wasn’t exactly worried about how you would have reacted. It’s… interesting. Shido must have known who I had the closest bonds with. Sae-san and you. He saw you both as threats in the end, or maybe a way for me to…” Akechi’s hands clenched and unclenched again, but he only laughed, as if to ignore his own panicked reaction. “…break away from his control?”

“That’s why he chose us as your targets.” And then Akechi had no choice but to go along with the plan unless he wanted Shido to be suspicious. Shido knew that without Akira or Sae in the picture, he could strengthen his own hold on Akechi. Making Akechi cut his ties with them himself only showed Akechi he had no way out. At any point, Shido could have used his other resources to get rid of them, but instead he chose to use Akechi. 

“That’s right,” Akechi agreed, too lightly. “You can even say it’s my fault you came to his attention. Even if the Phantom Thieves had gone after his allies, that man would have left it for me or others to deal with without questioning my plan. But he wanted something special for you. Because I noticed you.” 

_And he noticed that you noticed me. You must have really noticed me._

Akira wanted to joke, but even he realized that now wasn’t the time. Akechi’s smile was strained. And those raw details weren’t what Akira would have thought Akechi would freely share, so there must be a point that he was doing so now. 

“You didn’t go after the rest of the Phantom Thieves,” Akira said slowly. “After you thought you’d shot me.”

Akechi shook his head. “Yes. And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? That man wanted them gone, but… I don’t remember what excuse I made. It felt like you wouldn’t have condoned your friends getting killed. I don’t know why I cared about that then. But when it came to you yourself, it felt like anything was fair.” 

“All’s fair in love and war,” Akira agreed, nodding sagely. He couldn’t help the words this time. Akechi basically set himself up for them. Akechi spluttered, straightening himself up. There’s something about the sudden movement, and his harassed expression, that reminded Akira immediately of a wet cat. 

“Don’t put it that way!” 

“Even though it’s exactly like that?” Akira interjected smoothly, studying Akechi’s expression as it morphed again. Akechi looked away, lifting his hand to massage his temple.

“It was just different with you.” The muttered words sounded almost petulant. “That’s everything you need to know about it.”

Akira nodded, deciding not to press for now. He waited for what else Akechi would share. After looking at him with slightly narrowed eyes, probably suspicious that Akira was letting it go without more teasing, Akechi slowly started talking again, going back to his escape from Shido’s palace.

“What happened with your friends was a lot to take in. I just needed time to think. So yes, when I got that free shot, I didn’t shoot my double in the face. Even then it didn’t seem obvious to your friends. You probably… have an idea of how familiar with a gun I am, because of our time in Mementos, and…” Akechi trailed off uncomfortably. 

It probably said something about Akira that knowing Akechi shot a guard and the cognitive him didn’t really bother him that much. As far as impact went, Akira remembered being bothered more by seeing Ann kill the scantily clad version of herself in Kamoshida’s palace. After all, it was the first time they’d seen that happen, and anyway it had been like watching a porn-meet-horror when he hadn’t been expecting it. 

“After I shot my double, I had Loki take me away.” Akechi rested his forearms on the table, fingers pressing into his elbows. His recollection seemed to come more easily, and his tone was more normal. “He’d always been able to cloak me in the Metaverse, shift me from different locations. That was handy for what that man made me do, of course. Loki was my second Persona, a Persona born because of Shido. Without Loki, I wouldn’t have survived beyond the initial experiments, I think.”

Akira’s breath caught. Sae-san hadn’t said anything about that, but she’d taken the time later to thoroughly investigate Shido. She must have found something beyond what she told the media or their group. “Experiments?”

“That man—” Akechi usually referred to Shido that way. Akira didn’t know if it was lingering fear or contempt, but it was a hold Shido had on Akechi regardless. “—wanted to extract my Persona. To give to someone more pliant, I imagine. Even then he must have suspected me. One of the doctors said the procedure was going to kill me if we tried it. We still tried it. But then I awakened to Loki.” Akechi smiled humorlessly. “He didn’t want to risk losing a useful tool.”

“Oh…” It was more chilling, to know that Shido did that knowing Akechi was his son. A man who readily used even his own son as a stepping stone to succeed. A man that Akechi couldn’t be expected to forgive.

He wondered what Akechi thought of how they’d resolved the case. They’d changed Shido’s heart and delivered him to justice, but only for things that the public could understand. Those experiments, none of the other things Shido had done would ever come to light. And the public had all but forgotten about the incident, moving on to different scandals, fresher things. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Akechi told him bitterly, glaring. Akira shook his head and smoothed out his own frown. He wasn’t pitying him, exactly, but Akechi would take any sympathy as pity. 

“What happened after that? You were in contact with Sae-san, right?”

“I hadn’t planned for that at all.” Akechi huffed out a laugh. “I was hiding, not knowing if I’d still be welcome if I approached you guys again. I decided not to try… and then I forgot. It felt like I was free for the first time.” Akechi’s eyes grew distant, probably recalling the feeling. “Like I just got back from solving a difficult case I couldn’t remember. It was like that for a while. I approached Sae-san, asking if she needed any more cases solved. She was really surprised to see me. I noticed she was on guard, too, but I brushed it off.”

“Doesn’t sound like something you’d just do.”

“I don’t think I was me for much of it, really.” Akechi admitted this with a wry smile, only then taking a sip from his own drink. Akira drank, too, trying to imagine a genuinely happy Akechi. 

“Just for reference, did you used to practice smiling in front of a mirror?”

Akechi’s smirk was far from media-ready. He probably knew where Akira was going with this, but he still asked, “What’s this, all of a sudden?”

“Just answer it.”

“Well, _for reference_ , yes, I did. You smile at jokes or in sympathy or to move a conversation along. It’s useful to know how and when to smile. Of course I practiced it.” 

“But this you didn’t practice smiling?” 

The lightly mocking expression on Akechi’s face disappeared, turning carefully neutral. “No.” Because that was the public’s image of him, a facade that he was forced to live. But there were whole years that were unaccounted for. What did Akechi do? When did he remember things as they were again?

Akechi sighed. “Sae-san is a decent person. When I showed up in that state, she decided to hide me. I’d cracked a dangerous case, she said, but the man responsible had friends and those friends would try to find me. That much was true, actually, if they remembered me. She probably thought that as I was, I wouldn’t be able to defend myself. For the time being, I needed to stay away from Tokyo, so she helped me move.”

“You kept in contact with the Nijimas?” Akira had been hiding things from Makoto, but she’d hidden something big like this from him. It felt like he’d been played. Not that he could blame her. Akechi had probably seemed so different, and Makoto and her sister had elected to keep the secret between them instead of making Akechi face his guilt. They probably wanted to secure whatever future they could for him, while they kept the knowledge of this away from the parties that might be hurt. 

Akira could have told them it was misplaced concern; Haru was tough, and he’d talked with Futaba about it before. Futaba had finally accessed her mother’s research. She hadn’t shared with the group what exactly she found, but after, she seemed more relaxed and subdued at the same time. She said she just had some questions left regarding her own mother’s palace. 

She didn’t hate Akechi. None of them really did.

“At first, I could brush away anything about their statements that seemed strange,” Akechi continued. “I didn’t even remember that case they were talking about. Blunt force trauma, Sae-san explained. Somehow that was enough? I didn’t need to remember. They got me a new identity, saying my name could be easily traced. I went to school like normal and even made some friends. But then…” He gave Akira a long considering look, like he was wondering how much of it Akira was aware of or was responsible for.

The realization hit. _Something had happened that involved him somehow._ Akira couldn’t help it. He grinned. It was probably mercy to keep Akechi in the dark, but Akira couldn’t even feel selfish for celebrating that outcome, not with Akechi’s own almost manic smile directed at him, his sharp edges not masked this time. 

“Yes,” Akechi confirmed. He looked like he could cheerfully strangle Akira, probably thinking Akira had an active role to play in it. “I started to remember _you_.”

“Maybe because I was thinking about you non-stop,” Akira said casually, adding a scratch to the head and Joker’s signature smirk. Akechi looked away with a slightly annoyed frown. Akira liked the shorter hair, which did nothing to hide Akechi’s reddening ears. Akechi pursed his lips briefly, but ultimately decided to ignore the quip.

“Makoto-san said that people’s cognition affected everything, which is probably what happened to me. She and Sae-san thought it was best that they limit the impact of any other changes by keeping me a secret, especially since the Phantom Thieves knew the ‘truth’ about me, so before the Metaverse was cut off, the Phantom Thieves must have affected how I was in some way.”

“They thought you were dead,” Akira said, only now understanding how Makoto could have seen the situation, why the secrecy was important. 

Akechi nodded. “I think that’s what they were afraid of, that their knowledge of the dead me, once all your friends became aware of me again, would make me disappear. But now that I remember what happened, I guess you would have to be thinking ‘you’re dead’ pretty hard to have that effect,” Akechi said, smile intact. “Given that my body isn’t an illusion and I didn’t die like they thought.”

Akira let out his breath in a short laugh, stretching his legs under the table until they hit Akechi’s knees. “And I didn’t really think you were dead.”

“You’re the only one,” Akechi said, frowning at that in thought. His hands went under the table, resting on Akira’s ankles as if to pry his feet away, but his hold tightened instead. His fingers were cool and a little sweaty. “You’re probably what brought this me back, you know.”

“You really know how to make a guy feel special,” Akira said, smiling wider. Akechi only sighed at the joke, letting his ankles go with a rough shove. He sipped from his drink again, frowning. It was probably lukewarm by that point. 

Akira dropped the smile after a while. “Are you happy?” There was no way to probe him about this more gently. 

“No.” Akechi’s answer was immediate, the tone harsh. He let out an unamused laugh. “How can I be happy?” Akira wondered how Akechi had parted with Makoto and Sae. Judging from how he’d spoken of them, they must have gotten a bit close, which hurt Akechi more when he found out that their relationship was founded on a lie. He must have cut himself off from them, too.

“It was still a nice dream though, right? You should thank Sae-san and Makoto for protecting it for as long as they could.”

Akechi was silent at that, throat working. He set aside the drink, gaze falling on the open page of Akira’s mythology book. Loki smiled upside down in chains. The illustration looked nothing like Akechi’s Persona.

“Do you think I should turn myself in?” Akechi asked at length, his voice empty of emotion. He probably thought that Akira wanted retribution, but that was Shido’s cognitive Akechi. Akira wanted to think he was a bit more flexible with his beliefs. 

“There’s no crime that the police will recognize you were involved in,” Akira said. He leaned back, watching Akechi’s expression change to one of frustration. He decided to take pity and be more direct. “You must have decided there’s something you can do to atone on your own, right? What do you want to do now?” Akira smiled, not as amused as he wanted to come across when he remembered where he found Akechi. “Gonna quit giving people nice dreams?”

Akechi looked only mildly irritated at his assumption of what Akechi did, fiddling with the gold chain around his neck. “I’m undercover for a piece.”

“You became a journalist?” The idea did seem like something Akechi might consider, a way to uphold justice when he couldn’t be a detective anymore. Akira didn’t know why he didn’t consider that before. The flashy clothes distracted him.

“A researcher for a journalist anyway,” Akechi corrected dismissively. “So not a real journalist.”

It was still probably a way for him to encourage social reform, and it felt like it had more weight than what Akira was doing. Akira was aware of being in stasis. It wasn’t his job, exactly, but even though he’d already been back for a year, he hadn’t reconnected with his friends. The updates from his friends that came now and then showed him they were all doing amazing things. Futaba as always was busy with her computers, but she had her own new group, ordinary friends who just also happened to be hactivists. From what he heard, Yusuke was still dropping by LeBlanc, but he had his own studio now. Haru had started to restructure her company seriously, fighting her own board of directors with steely and perfect politeness. 

Akechi had been trying hard, too. Pulled away from his mandatory happiness, he had still started to move forward. Akira felt like he could try harder this time. 

He didn’t want to think of this as closure though, not in the way Akechi seemed to think. For one thing, he didn’t want Akechi to go away again. He wanted a new connection, something beyond just knowing Akechi’s number or email address. 

To be honest, what he probably wanted was to be like LeBlanc for Akechi, but something more solid, less transient than that. 

“Hey, what do you think about getting a partner?”

Akechi stared at him, mouthing the words of a silent question. He seemed to decide Akira wasn’t being serious, because he went back to frowning. “Now you’re thinking of uprooting your own life? Are you stupid?”

Akira rubbed at the back of his neck. He allowed himself to smile. “I’m just deciding on my path, too. And this seems fun.” 

Akira didn’t expect Akechi to lash out at that, but Akechi slammed his fist on the table, making their drinks wobble. His face was red, anger palpable in the tense line of his shoulders. 

“Stop feeling guilty about it! You don’t…” Like it was being squeezed from a wound, Akechi’s anger seemed to drain out of him, leaving only an empty mask. “You don’t have to supervise me. You don’t have to feel obligated to stay near me, just because—”

“Goro,” Akira said, loudly. Akechi blinked. Before he could recover from the slight shock, Akira continued, “I don’t feel guilty.” 

That was the truth, but he could already see Akechi shaking his head against it. He didn’t think he’d cultivated a responsible image as the leader of the Phantom Thieves, but somehow here Akechi was, with the idea that Akira only wanted to do this out of some noble idea that he had to help Akechi with his rehabilitation. If anything, Akira’s own motives were more selfish, but admitting that probably won’t convince Akechi either. 

“You’re the one who ran away before,” Akira reminded him, starting to feel a little annoyed himself when Akechi crossed his arms defensively. He pushed the annoyance aside though, breathing in and correcting his posture, trying to show Akechi that he was being serious. “I’m asking you to stay this time.”

Akechi made a sound, half a snort and half a sob. It was probably the most unattractive sound he’d heard from Akechi, but still somehow endearing. Akira resolved not to mention that to anyone, though he couldn’t deny the appeal of telling Akechi about it, once they were more used to each other.

“We didn’t really get to be friends,” Akechi observed with a conflicted expression. He folded his hands atop the table, the fingers of one hand resting on top of the other, digging in as if to ground himself.

“So you want to start with being friends first? I’m telling you though, if you want to keep stalking people in Shinjuku, I’m pretty useful as a partner.” 

“Stalking people, right…” Akechi gave him a dubious glance. Akira did find Akechi though, so at the very least Akechi couldn’t deny that Akira knew his way around enough for that. Akira might need some time to properly relearn the district, and he might not be the best at making deductions, but he could still help Akechi find his leads. 

Akira reached out with his right hand across the table, palm up. “What do you say?”

Akechi spent a long time just staring at his hand. Childishly, Akira waggled his fingers when the silence went on for too long. Akechi finally seemed to unfreeze, and grasped Akira’s hand with his own calloused left hand. Those weren’t gun callouses though. For one disturbing moment, Akira wasn’t sure if he was disappointed by this or not. Definitely not, he resolved. Akira squeezed his hand and didn’t let go immediately.

“But before that,” Akira said quietly, keeping his voice even.

“Yeah, before that…”

Akira moved, jerking Akechi towards him. Akechi braced himself too late with his other hand on the table. His hand slid along with his upper body instead, the takeout containers flying. Akira was aware of Akechi’s free hand deftly picking up one of the chopsticks as a makeshift weapon before discarding it, but he was focusing on Akechi’s face the whole time, watching his expression set to steely-eyed defiance. 

It was the wrong expression for a hug, but he’ll take it.

Akechi stiffened when Akira slipped his other arm around his back and pulled him closer. It was an awkward angle, with half of Akechi over the remains of his food, Akira leaning his own body to make up for the remaining distance. The table groaned a warning before Akechi did. Akira gave Akechi one last pat on the back, snorting out a laugh at his own lack of control, before he released Akechi. Akechi pulled immediately away, straightening his clothes almost absently and picking a slice of cucumber from his shirt as he gave Akira a look like he was questioning his sanity.

“I thought you were…” Akechi swallowed, laughing to cover his surprise. 

“What, you thought we were meant to punch each other then?” He’d seen a scenario like that in one of Ryuuji’s manga. It never quite had the appeal of reality. But now that he thought about it, Akechi seemed like he’d be a fan of something like that. 

“Wait,” Akira said, when that sank in. “You didn’t ready yourself to punch back.” 

“I thought I’d give you a free punch. After everything that happened.” That explained that expression.

Akira scratched the back of his head, silently admitting that the gesture failed. Akechi looked more confused than anything, and now he was watching Akira more warily. Akira wondered what the future would look like if Akechi became guarded against hugs.

“I’ll warn you next time,” Akira said as an apology. His gaze fell reluctantly on the dirty table, the clumps of rice and vegetables strewn on the surface. The boxes on the floor. Maybe he really should have thought of it more. Akechi brightened up even as his own expression fell. 

“Should we clean up?” Akechi asked. He seemed to have recovered, gleeful mask in place as he sat up. “I must say, I didn’t expect our partnership to start with having to clean up one of your messes.”

“No, no,” Akira said, waving away the biting offer of help. “I’ll do it.” Akira stood up. He’s heading to the kitchen for a rag to wipe down the table with when he heard shuffling behind him. When he looked back, halfway to the adjoining kitchen, he saw Akechi had leant to the side with one hand on the table propping him up, fishing boxes from the floor and stacking them up beside him. 

Akira felt his mouth stretch, something like fondness making him release a chuckle. Akechi met his eyes. Akechi’s face reflected something more than surprise this time. It looked a lot like cautious hope.

Akira went back to his own task. When he returned with the wet rag, Akechi was watching him uncertainly.

“Akira?”

“Hmm?” Akira wiped lazily at the table, forcing his muscles to relax. It was hard not to read into that look earlier, not to feel hopeful himself. But even just an offer of friendship had apparently scared Akechi enough to disappear for years. Maybe Akechi needed the illusion of space, as he analyzed how he himself felt. In LeBlanc, there had been a perfect distance from where Akechi sat primly on the stool and where Akira stood on the other side of the counter. Akira could recreate it, if he wanted.

“…No.” Predictably, Akechi drew back. His voice held a note of shyness and relief, averting his eyes after meeting Akira’s eyes briefly. “I’ll tell you later.” 

It was a delicate balance, to push and pull at the right time. To hang a bait and not be disappointed if Akechi didn’t bite. Akira nodded like he also hadn’t noticed anything. They were going to be partners. Akira could be patient with these slow steps forward. 

“I’ll listen,” Akira said. “That’s a promise.”

When he asked though, Akechi agreed to stay the night.


	4. Day 5 Poe's Masquerade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two Morganas AU, rebirth versus rehabilitation

Day 5 Pumpkins/ **Poe’s masquerade**

 

From his periphery, a shadow moved. 

Goro only had enough time to lift his saber up; he met the Shadow’s knife at a bad angle, the blade screeching only briefly against his before continuing its thrust forward. He did his best to step back, but still felt a sharp prick of pain before Morchan threw a healing spell at him. The flesh knit disconcertingly quickly as it always did, the tingling sensation left mixing with the adrenaline now coursing through his body. From the opposite pillar the Shadow jumped from, an urgent little voice said: “Joker, disengage!”

It sounded eerily like the voice of Goro’s own companion. Morchan circled above him before sharply dipping her wing, perching on Goro’s shoulder as he corrected his stance and studied his unexpected opponent.

Every Palace so far had been different, but the denizens that guarded it always revealed themselves as demons in battle. This one must be a unique strain, for it to attack while still looking fully human and to remain in this form. The eyes behind the mask were not empty sockets, and it carried itself differently from the twitching, boneless way of this Palace’s own defenses. Which meant—

 _An outsider?_ Goro wondered. That can’t be right either. They haven't met anyone in someone's Palace who wasn't a Shadow, and this was undeniably a hostile entity, so he couldn’t afford to let his guard down. When he focused on the Shadow’s aura though, the gleam was reassuringly dull: a weaker opponent.

“Morchan!” he called. At the sound of his voice, the Shadow in front of him widened its eyes, as if it hadn’t expected him to speak. To add to its strange behavior, the Shadow didn’t shout about intruders either.

“Got it!” Morchan did a happy flip in the air before bursting into her larger masked form, floating a foot above the ground. 

“What the hell!” said another voice. Goro cut his glance to the newcomer, who appeared ungracefully from his hiding place with a female Shadow in tow. The Shadow from earlier took the chance to attack, but Goro was expecting it this time. He erected a wall, readying another spell as the attack bounced harmlessly off.

The Shadow’s companions joined in almost immediately. Morchan shouted her cheerful and frankly distracting encouragements (“Tear them limb from limb, Crow!” “Don’t let that fuzzy head recover!” “Now isn’t the time to be a gentleman, just hit her while she’s down!”) and threw the occasional spell. The Shadows seemed surprised when Morchan and then Goro used their Personas. The original Shadow remained stoic, weathering attacks and watching Goro in a way that was equal parts intriguing and unnerving. 

Then the Shadow lobbed a dark spell at Goro. Robin Hood fell to one knee, and Goro felt the damage reflect on him. He gasped; he hadn’t encountered an enemy yet that could target Robin Hood’s weakness, hadn’t expected the effect to be this debilitating. His own knees buckled, and he saw the Shadows regroup. Another Shadow revealed itself from behind a pillar: the voice from earlier, Goro realized, although his sight was a little bleary and he can’t focus. It got as far as: “Okay, guys, I think—” 

“This is it, guys! We can take him!” 

Morchan squawked in alarm, and Goro felt his own panic rising. The blows they managed to land on him hurt quite a bit, though they aren’t what you’d call coordinated. Goro thought numbly that he must have a broken rib, but he’s just glad that the whip attack from earlier hadn’t snapped his neck. He choked out a breath, regaining his footing while Morchan covered for him, throwing spell after spell.

Goro let his saber go.

“Really, Crow, really?” Morchan returned to his side, circling him. She sounded a bit disbelieving. She must have felt the difference in their level of power. It made them both complacent; Goro wasn’t going to push his luck this time.

“Better err on the side of caution,” Goro told her, giving her a quick look for injuries. Then he took a deep breath and called Loki. 

The shift from one Persona to another was a strange feeling, like suddenly finding oneself upside down and realizing it’s the right side up. Loki’s constricting bonds wrapped around him. His gloves changed to clawed gauntlets, and there was a tight feeling in his chest that tempted him to claw it out. Something always seemed unstable about Loki, but he brought a feeling of relief, too, confidence and a bit of hankering for mischief.

The fight at least ended quickly after that. 

Goro approached the group, taking off his helmet and letting it fall, catching his breath. They’re all down, even the cat-like Shadow that stepped in earlier. The loud blond Shadow was groaning, and fixed furious eyes at him when Goro knelt in front of it, a pistol trained to its head. “Why did I… why would _you_ … fucking _hell_ , man…”

“Thank you for the input,” Goro said in a clipped tone. If he had to admit, this part was a little fun. Morchan floated off to one side, examining the smallest Shadow. Goro ignored the other prone Shadows for now, studying the one in front of him as it struggled to prop itself up. “And for the help earlier, of course.”

“I was _in love_ with you!” The Shadow moved its arms wildly, flopping back down as it lost its support. “Why would you do that!”

“Ah.” Goro pursed his lips. He understood the Shadow’s mortification. Morchan explained before that Persona users like him can develop abilities based on their potential. His psyche somehow came up with the ability based on his need to be loved, back when he was younger and had no one. 

A very telling ability. It’s a shameful weakness he hoped no one would be smart enough to exploit.

This ability was convenient though; if he can’t beat the Shadows, he can charm them. And then watch them fight over him while he and Morchan stayed a safe distance away. The downside being that he was always left hoping someone _did_ love him, but, well. At least he had Morchan, who insisted that she was better than any cuddle toy.

“Childhood trauma, you know how it goes,” Goro said, though he is, in fact, sure this Shadow knew nothing of the sort. He tightened his hold on the gun. “Are you ready for the interrogation?”

“‘Interrogation,’ what the fuck…”

“I find your constant use of expletives disturbing,” Goro said. Then he dropped the cheerful mask, poking the Shadow in the forehead with the gun. “You were gonna kill me, you fucker.” He punctuated each word with a poke, though his voice was flat. The Shadow’s eyes widened satisfyingly. “The least you can do is be fucking polite to me. Trash like you always look down on people. I bet whoever’s Shadow you are is an asshole, too!”

“Huh,” the Shadow said, blinking. It looked strangely all right with the verbal abuse, but then it was a Shadow. They didn’t seem to share the same expectations as people in the real world. The Shadow managed to sit up this time, and its companions started to look more alert, too. The cat-like Shadow scrambled up, said, “Joker!”

“Okay,” the black-haired Shadow—this must be Joker—muttered. He was looking at Goro like he had been earlier, meeting Goro’s eyes with no trace of shyness. Goro could feel the sense of control start to slip away from his fingers and frowned. He stood up, shifting the gun to Joker.

“How are you affiliated with Fukiya?” Goro asked, keeping his voice friendly this time. 

“We’re not,” Joker answered easily enough. Goro wondered if this strengthens the theory that they’re outsiders, but he still wasn’t sure how that would work if that were true. He turned towards Morchan, only to see she wasn’t paying any attention to Joker all. She was in a stare-off with the cat-like Shadow. 

With Morchan in her Metaverse form, they did look a bit similar. Morchan didn’t have enough memories to give insight into who or what this unfaithful copy is though. It was probably bothering her. He would need to move the interrogation forward on his own.

Goro returned his attention to Joker. He gave Joker a smile paired with knitted brows, exuding sympathy for catching Joker in a lie. “But you’re in his Palace.”

“You are, too.”

“Hmm.” Goro conceded the point, and reluctantly holstered his gun. Something about the short, almost lazy responses drained him, made him feel wistful in a way he couldn’t explain. He reached out a hand, palm up. Joker started reaching for it with a bemused expression, but Goro quickly corrected him with a frown, “No, I’m not helping you up. You have money, right? Give me all your money and then you can go.”

Joker gave him a slow blink behind his mask. And then he grinned, rolling his shoulders slowly. “Credit? Maybe a rare item?”

“No. Money.” Since they were in the Metaverse, Goro didn’t care how he sounded. Living without relatives, Goro was desperate for what he was able to get. Granted, there was probably something dishonest about coercing Shadows to give him money and using that money in the real world. But until society started to actively help orphans, Goro wasn’t going to feel too guilty.

“So we can bribe law enforcement here. That’s a little too convenient,” the female Shadow said this time. She still looked shaken, but her eyes were fixed on him, not trusting. He recalled a jewel thief in a show with a similar bodysuit to what she was wearing, and wondered at this overall strange scenario. Goro didn’t know what sort of lives Shadows had outside of when he saw them, but at the very least, she must want to go back to hers. Goro smiled reassuringly.

“Fortunately for all of you, I can be bribed. Private investigators still need to eat after all.” 

It’s strange to see them huddle together after that, whispering at each other. Goro watched as Joker unhooked the pouch he was carrying from his belt. It looked dishearteningly flat, but his companions seemed to be arguing about whether or not they should give it. In the end, Joker approached him with the pouch, holding it out. 

Goro took it and inspected the contents without much hope. It was still disappointing to see the handful of yen he would be getting from this fight. Usually, stronger Shadows had more than this. And the unnecessarily draining fight meant he and Morchan needed to return sooner than they anticipated. The rent was due in three days.

“Hey,” the blond Shadow called out, hands on hips, as if it could sense Goro’s judgment. “It’s not much, but it’s because we’re just starting. Just you wait!”

The straightforwardness was new, at least. Goro let out a laugh, shaking his head. “I don’t want to fight you again,” Goro said honestly. “There’s no merit to it.” He turned to see Joker assessing him, hand behind his neck in a deceptively casual pose. Goro left before the Shadows could recover. Morchan immediately perched on his shoulder.

When they got to the next floor, they encountered more Shadows. The Shadows seemed normal this time, but could deal some solid damage, requiring them to constantly heal. They cleared only one more floor, grim and efficient out of some unsettled frustration that remained from earlier, before Goro had to admit it was more prudent to go back. Once they reached the safe room, Goro fiddled with his phone, opening the app after warning Morchan he was using it.

The return to the real world was disconcerting; the Metaverse melted into reality, colors muted and the world just generally deader, like a rotting piece of wood. Goro’s outfit ribboned out into nonexistence, replaced by the baggy sweatshirt he was really wearing. He felt out the hole in one of his sneakers with his big toe. This was something like a grounding habit now, because it had been months and he was still idly toying with the idea of replacing his shoes.

“I don’t trust that lot,” Morchan said, restlessly hopping from Goro’s shoulder to his head. The feel of her claws was something he’d surprisingly gotten used to, with more than two years of them working together. They still hurt though, and Goro found himself reflexively smiling against the slight pain, getting her to move by offering a more enticing perch on his arm. “They better not be there when we infiltrate again.”

“That Shadow seemed a lot like you.” Goro watched her closely. When she didn’t seem offended, Goro continued, “Did seeing that Shadow make you remember something?”

“Hmm.” The sound Morchan made was disappointed, a little lost. “I thought there was… something… but, I mean… it’s a Shadow. I’m human. I think.” Goro felt her shudder, her claws just slightly pricking through the fabric of his sweatshirt. Goro wondered what that was like, to not know if you were even human or not. Not that being human meant much. It was hard to be human but not have human connections. 

“Do you think there are other humans stuck in another form?” The forced levity in Morchan’s voice made Goro shake his head against where his own thoughts were going, focusing on Morchan for now.

“There’s that possibility,” Goro agreed. 

“Right?” Morchan hopped back to his shoulder again. She always complained that he didn’t have enough shoulder to comfortably stand on, but she defaulted to his right shoulder if she needed a perch. He’s left-handed; Goro assumed with fondness that she was being considerate enough to think of not getting in the way. “I just have to be patient, and we just have to keep exploring the Palaces and Mementos! There must be some sort of clue…”

“We’ve encountered a dead end in Mementos though.” He remembered Morchan’s frustration at seeing the door at the very end closed to them. At that time, Goro could only stand around awkwardly, any comfort he could offer dull in the face of both of their uncertain futures. Now at least they have a roof over their heads again. It was a considerable improvement from when he was fifteen.

“I think we just need more of the public to know about what you’re doing.” Morchan gave the hair hanging over his ear a playful yank. “If we can establish you as a detective, we can finally solve real crimes, the public will be more aware of you, and more of Mementos will open!”

“But for now it’s back to odd jobs.” Goro smiled wryly. Aside from a part-time job at a bakery (helpful because the bakery allowed him to take home some of the unsold bread at the end of the day), there were only requests to find someone’s lost pet, or an elderly person asking for aid with something labor-intensive. There was a man in the neighborhood they know only as Gramps whose bonsai collection was stolen.

Then there was Fukiya. 

When they reached a busier street, Morchan knew to keep silent. They passed through with hardly anyone noticing them. Goro got only a couple of bemused looks for the bird perched on his shoulder. On the whole, though, they were content to ignore him. Goro felt the sting of something too resigned to properly call hate against these nameless, faceless strangers. 

_I’ll show you_ , he thought before, when his mother was freshly dead. The whispers that followed her suicide were hardly forgiving: “Why couldn’t she kill herself somewhere more private?” “What a bother.” “Don’t people realize just how lucky they are to be alive?”

They didn’t know her, so their reaction was only natural. But to the young Goro, the people behind those hurtful whispers were unforgivable.

_I’ll show you how rotten humanity is. None of us deserve to live._

_The world should end because of how stupid humans are._

Those were the thoughts that bubbled up, when his mother was reduced to a statistic. More than simply losing a source of affection though, he grew aware of how unprotected his mother’s death left him. Adults decided everything for him, the foster homes, the school he could go to. Even when he did well in school, they discouraged him from taking higher education, citing the cost, talking about the heavy weight of responsibility. 

At fifteen, he ran away. Shortly after, he met Morchan.

But still, Goro half-remembered a brief period of serenity, in between one foster home and another. 

_Ah, that’s right. Before Morchan, I made a friend._ That felt too long ago now for him to remember anything beyond large eyes and a strangely serious demeanor. Some similarly lonely kid who played heroes with him in a park on weekends, who let him choose Red even if it meant Goro got to be the leader. _Maybe it’s the Shadow’s hair_ , Goro thought absently, brushing his own fringe away from his eyes. _It reminded me. Wasn’t it curly like that?_

_…I wonder what he’s doing now?_

“Anyway, there’s probably just one more floor in that Palace,” Morchan said, bringing him back to the present to find he’d walked automatically to the rundown apartment complex they were staying in. It was an ideal base of operations; it didn’t follow safety standards, and some of the other tenants were shady, but it meant the landlord didn’t ask him either about why he was renting a room without a guardian. 

Goro hooked his finger in the key ring in his pocket, the keys jangling. Morchan flew inside once he got his door open. 

It was a very sparse room, the genkan opening to the single room that served as both living room and bedroom, a toilet and sink in a smaller side room but no bath, and even then he could hardly afford it. He took his sneakers off, setting them aside near his umbrella. After washing his hands and changing out of his shirt, he sat down heavily on his folded up futon, feeling tired after the long day.

“We just need to secure the route to the evidence and then snatch it!”

“We’ll still need to warn him outside though, or the evidence won’t even be there, right?” Goro slid down to his side and turned slightly, bringing his phone up to his face to consult the calendar. “If we can finish clearing the remaining floor this weekend, we can hopefully get all this done before Wednesday.” Juggling this with schoolwork when practice exams were coming up this week was going to be quite memorable in a way. Goro hid a yawn behind his hand, feeling tears squeezing out of his eyes. “But tomorrow… well, there’s Grandma Ume’s request to consider.”

“Ah, yeah. You need to rest, too.” Morchan sounded only a little reluctant to give up Palace exploration the next day. Maybe it was more practical to do other tasks tomorrow, finish some of the requests from the old people of the neighborhood, sell some of the Metaverse items to secondhand shops. Goro pressed a palm against his side. It ached, but not as if any of his bones got broken. He would appreciate a day of relative peace though.

He fell asleep to Morchan reminding him to eat.

\--

The next day, Sunday, was thankfully uneventful. They found Grandma Ume’s tabby making its usual rounds near the ramen shop, and deposited the definitely loved, criminally fat cat back to its owner. Grandma Ume invited them in, and got Goro to eat some pickled plums with her. Goro was half-convinced that her requests were only an excuse to feed him. He felt warm at that thought; since meeting Morchan, he’d met more people like Grandma Ume. Sometimes it was like Morchan was giving him some of her luck, although Morchan only needed him incidentally.

It could have been anyone, Goro thought without the expected resentment. Even if they met by coincidence, he still felt like he’d been chosen. Maybe it simply felt nice to be needed.

They ran some errands for Grandma Ume, which they finished just after lunch. Next, they returned to the apartment to pick up some of the items that didn’t seem suspicious to sell. Goro ended up with the painted screens from Fukiya’s Palace wrapped carefully in cloth. Goro wasn’t familiar with the motif and didn’t know if they were duplicates of something, but they looked expensive. Goro made his careful way to Yongen-Jaya with his delicate burden, looking for the address of the shop that one of his regulars told him about. 

He found it relatively quickly. The owner was a stooped old man who hummed while he worked. He wasn’t dismissive of Goro, just kindly held out his hands and set the screens down to inspect them. Goro made his usual excuses: heirloom from his grandmother, but he needed to pay the school fees and couldn’t justify holding on to them. The owner nodded sympathetically, although he probably got the same stories all the time, and quoted a price. 

Goro felt some of the tension leave his shoulders, and he let out a relieved laugh, accepting the owner’s offer. The owner counted the money out carefully before handing the bills to Goro with a kind smile. Goro took the money gratefully. At that point, he could have shaken the old man’s hand and hugged him in gratitude, but he suppressed the urge and instead tucked the money safely away first. After, he gave the old man a dignified little bow. 

Something crashed into him from behind, sending him almost toppling. Only his reflexes allowed Goro to catch himself before he could damage the screens.

He turned around with a glare. Whatever crashed into his back felt too small to be a person. A cat, Goro concluded, feeling the weight remaining on his back the size of a volleyball, sticking to his shirt with the help of its claws. Morchan had taken flight when the cat had seemingly launched itself at him, and now proceeded to caw at it rudely.

“You!” the cat said, and Goro abruptly realized that he understood it. 

He reached behind him and yanked the cat off his back, staring at the black cat which was looking back at him with unnaturally blue eyes. Almost against his will, Goro’s gaze slid next to the boy standing some steps away with hands inside his pockets. He was wearing glasses, which were reflecting the light from the setting sun. Goro couldn’t be sure of his expression, though his lips were a thin line that was neither a smile nor a frown.

“Ah,” the other boy said. His tone sounded almost lazy, and he moved closer, taking the cat from Goro’s hands. He stepped closer than seemed polite, close enough Goro noticed his lower lashes, dark and thicker than average. 

“Found a crow. And…” The boy tilted his head up, like an afterthought, his movements languid. “His pet crow.” His eyes returned to Goro. “Coffee?”

\--

“Akechi Goro. Despite being in high school, you’re already a rookie detective.” The boy, _Joker_ , said all this in a calm, sleepy voice. He had a friendly smile on his face, and he didn’t seem especially guarded. 

“There was this homeless guy who remembered seeing you at the station square,” Joker continued. “Said you were handing out cards to advertise your services. Even without that, you’re quite popular now.”

“Huh?” Goro couldn’t help the surprised exclamation. It was a small sound, but Joker seemed to have caught it, looking at Goro with his head tilted to one side.

“I mean around these parts, I guess.” Joker set a cup of coffee in front of him, ‘on the house,’ although the grumpy owner of the café, who was staying behind the counter with a newspaper, told them they’d still need to pay for it. The smell of coffee, of real beans, permeated the air. In another situation, it would be relaxing. “The neighborhood grannies know you as this diligent and helpful young man. Apparently you can solve anything.”

“I-I see.” Goro took a sip of the coffee to hide his embarrassment. That… sounded like praise. It left Goro feeling both pleased and unsure.

“Study group?” the owner asked. Joker gave a shrug that wasn’t a real answer, but the owner seemed to accept it, throwing a key at Joker. Joker caught the key without fumbling or looking at it, and Goro watched him with narrowed eyes. So he was dexterous, even in the real world. The owner reminded him to close up later, muttering something about heading back since it was a very slow day today.

The bell above the door chimed, and the door closed behind the owner. Morchan squirmed up and out of the hood of his sweatshirt. At the same time, as if the closing door was a signal, Joker’s cat jumped up the counter and stared at them. Goro became aware that he was holding his breath, and let it out again. 

“I… It seems I’m at a disadvantage,” Goro found himself saying. “Since you already know who I am.”

“Kurusu Akira. Second-year student at Shujin Academy.” The information was freely offered, a show of trust. Goro didn’t know what he felt about this, so he just nodded. He saw the tail of Joker’s cat lash out in annoyance. Except for ‘Kurusu Akira’ himself, none of them seemed to be inclined to trust each other.

“Then, good evening, Kurusu-kun.”

“Good evening, Akechi-san.” There was something like amusement in the tone of Kurusu’s voice this time, but Goro didn’t understand what there was to be amused about, so he ignored it. 

“You already know who I am,” Goro said, and petted Morchan so she’d stop fluffing up her feathers like she was going to attack. “And this is Morgana.”

“ _What_ ,” the cat screeched from the counter. It looked comically surprised at the name, but the surprise quickly changed. “You can’t be Morgana! _I’m_ Morgana!”

“You’re just an imperfect copy!”

“You’re the copy!”

The bickering seemed like it’ll continue, only growing in volume, and fueled not by any real anger but panic. It couldn’t easily be dismissed as coincidence, and for Morchan, it must seem like her whole existence was being called into question. _The same name_. Goro reached up and cradled her in his arms, not sure of what he was doing or trying to do, or if it would work.

“We also call him Mona,” Kurusu offered, as if the raised voices didn’t bother him in the least. He settled on the other side of the booth from Goro, setting down a mug of his own coffee beside Goro’s and playing with his fringe. “And I meant to ask: your Morgana. A guy? Girl?”

“She’s a girl, of course.”

“What!” the cat exclaimed once more, but instead of setting the cat off again, hearing that seemed to make it relax a fraction. It sat back on its haunches and gave Morchan a squinty stare. “Well, I’m a guy. So I guess we’re actually different.”

Goro wasn’t above provoking others to get more of a reaction though, if it meant more information. This was enemy territory after all. “But Morchan is human, not a Shadow.”

“I’m human, too!”

They really were similar. Goro looked at Morchan, who had settled in his arms. She looked a little sad at the confirmation, but quickly mustered a positive response. “So there might really be more of us. And there must be a way for us to turn back!”

“Do either of you remember anything more? Maybe you were working on the same thing when this happened?” Goro released Morchan, who jumped onto the table, careful not to upset the mug. Goro stroked his chin in thought. “You might even have known each other.”

Wordlessly, Mona and Morchan looked at each other. Kurusu left them to it, calmly sipping from his coffee while Goro watched more tensely. Morchan gave up first, flopping back and pointing her feet up. It felt like a crow-version of ‘playing dead.’ Sometimes Morchan did things that Goro hadn’t imagined he’d see a real bird do except in cute videos on the Internet.

“It’s no use. I feel like there’s something I should remember, but then I don’t remember…”

“Same here…”

“Can I assume that’s what you were doing in Fukiya’s Palace, Kurusu-kun?” Goro met Kurusu’s eyes. “Looking for Mona-kun’s memories?”

“That, too, but no.” Kurusu licked his lips of any coffee residue, then fixed his glasses. His eyes were steady. “We’re going to change Fukiya’s heart.”

Goro smiled. He wrapped his hands around his cup of coffee, feeling the warmth seep into his fingers. “We’re rivals then.”

Morchan rolled herself back to her feet, hopping left and right on the table in what she probably thought was a threatening manner. “Back off, fuzzy head! This is our investigation!”

“Oh?” The other Morgana leapt to the floor, quickly making his way to the booth and popping up beside Kurusu, paws on the edge of the tabletop. “How far have you gotten in your ‘investigation’? We’ve already secured the route to the Treasure today!”

Treasure. The terminology was different, but he must mean the evidence Goro and Morchan were after. Goro felt a surge of alarm first, and then frustration. It felt exactly like a stolen case. Goro realized that they must have made it easier for Kurusu’s group yesterday, clearing the upper floor and leaving only the one above that. Going back earlier and not returning today was a mistake. Goro narrowed his eyes at Kurusu, who looked completely unrepentant.

“How did you know about Fukiya, Akechi-san?” Kurusu asked instead, having the gall to look interested. Goro closed his mouth reflexively against an insult, drinking the coffee to give himself time to think. Exchanging information now didn’t seem like it would harm their position though. Especially since the consultant fee for this case was small and the client won’t care as long as the case was resolved.

“I have reason to believe that Fukiya is involved in three counts of murder. Around ten years ago, as a college student, Fukiya got a huge sum of money. His friend’s landlady, a collector of antiques, was killed just days before. His friend reported the crime. The money she was keeping in her home was stolen, so the theft was seen as the motive. Since the police later found half of it in the keeping of Fukiya’s friend, the friend was arrested. Fukiya got away because while he seemed suspicious, there wasn’t enough evidence to link him to the crime, even as a co-conspirator. In the end, he was given a formal apology by the police and let go.”

“How about the huge sum you said he had?”

“An old relative vouched to have given it to him to help with his college education. The amount he had also didn’t correspond to the amount that remained missing.” Goro smiled without humor. “My theory is that he’s given this relative most of the cash to hide. But the police didn’t have anything to prove either of them were lying. A year after the theft and murder, this relative disappeared without a trace. But by then there was no interest in the case. The woman was only reported as a missing person, and her disappearance was not linked to the case at all.”

“Why not just give the relative all the money from the beginning?” Kurusu frowned, like he was really thinking about it. It seemed strange that he didn’t seem to be aware of those details of the case, but he must still have found enough clues to be able to enter Fukiya’s Palace. “Doesn’t seem wise to put suspicion on yourself by keeping some of the money. If he hadn’t done that, the police wouldn’t have noticed him at all, right?”

“Ah.” Goro ran his finger over the lip of his cup, wondering how to phrase this best. “That would be because of the type of killer Fukiya is. He’s… well, a ‘thrill killer’ might be too much. Money was a motive, but he was also interested in the perfect crime. So he purposely made himself a ‘red herring.’ For him, there must have been a certain thrill to being accused but exonerated. You’ve seen his Palace, right?”

The disturbing pieces of art. The seats that lined the walls for an audience. The locked room with the corpse. 

“Were you following this case for that long, Akechi-san?”

“Ten years?” Goro laughed, incredulous. “No. I only became aware of the case around two weeks ago, actually, because the maid of the newest victim stepped forward and I did some digging. Nothing directly linked to Fukiya again, so the police might benefit from a confession.” 

“Hmm.” Kurusu played with his fringe, twisting the particularly unruly bit between his eyes. He smiled, disarming, and Goro tensed, immediately on guard. “We’re not rivals if our goal is the same, are we?”

In a sense, that was true. The police didn’t want Goro’s involvement in solving the case after all, and the client only asked for help because she didn’t want to leave everything to the police. Goro only really needed to put the maid’s mind at ease, tell her there’s enough evidence to prove Fukiya committed the crime. Fukiya’s confession would do the rest. But it still felt frustrating to know that their hard work would be meaningless, with a different group finishing what they started. 

Goro sighed. “How are you involved in this anyway, Kurusu-kun?” The coffee was growing a bit cold by this point, but it felt disrespectful not to finish it. And it helped ease the feeling of restlessness and disappointment somewhat. 

“Unexpected overlap,” Kurusu said. The non-answer was insulting after everything. Goro couldn’t even begin to understand what he meant by that. Kurusu seemed to notice his dissatisfaction, because he elaborated, “There’s theft in this case, too. People talked on the Net about it. It was by coincidence.”

Goro’s lips thinned. “You don’t seem like the type who’ll go out of your way to help someone.”

Kurusu was quiet. “Is that how I seem?” He didn’t sound offended, but he also didn’t sound happy with this assessment. Since he was stealing the job from them anyway, Goro wasn’t going to start mincing words with him.

“You look more like the type who’ll watch people’s reactions quietly without drawing attention to yourself.”

Kurusu seemed to absorb this, and finally nodded. “I think I was that sort of person.” He added, simply: “People change.”

“No, they don’t. A ‘change of heart’ doesn’t count as real change.” Goro smiled, all too aware of the hypocrisy. Kurusu, who claimed people could change but forcibly changed people’s hearts in the Metaverse. And Goro, too. 

He changed the hearts of his last foster parents, thinking at least to save their new kid from abuse. Their remorse didn’t feel satisfying; it was horrifying, like they’d been scraped clean of something vital and what was left was a caricature, cloyingly attentive and desperate to prove they were good people. Goro couldn’t, _didn’t_ want to reverse it, and he couldn’t apologize to the new kid who lived each day waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Goro was disgusted with what he’d done. But that sort of change wasn’t going to happen on its own either. He sacrificed two people’s personalities for the happiness of one person, and in the end that person wasn’t happy with the outcome.

If only things were as simple as Kurusu said. 

“Perhaps if people died and were reborn.” Goro couldn’t help the wistful tone. _Perhaps if I could be reborn…_

“Ugh, you.” Morgana the cat poked a paw at Goro, and Goro blinked at him. Truthfully, for a moment, he forgot that they weren’t alone. Something about Kurusu was irritatingly distracting. “I don’t know why,” the cat said, surly, “but I don’t like you.”

“Well, we’ll see who gets the evidence first,” Morchan taunted. She sounded like she was enjoying it, which was a little surprising. If Goro didn’t get any form of recognition for this case, he wouldn’t be able to help Morchan. They wouldn’t get Mementos to open. Perhaps finding out there were others exploring the Metaverse was more of a relief for her than he thought.

“Akechi-san,” Kurusu said when Goro made a move to stand. “We’re sending the calling card tonight.” Calling card? “We’ll be infiltrating the Palace tomorrow, after school. There’s a different target we’re eyeing for after. A bigger name.” Kurusu opened his hands. “No murder this time.”

Goro straightened his sweatshirt, scowling. Kurusu’s gaze didn’t waver, all too innocent it had to be fake. 

“Why are you telling me this? I thought we’ve established we’re rivals.”

“Please help us.” Rather than a plea, it was an invitation. A chance to work in a group. Goro gritted his teeth.

“I don’t see the merit in doing so.”

“You’ll see how we operate,” Kurusu said. He broke out the suspiciously enticing grin, something Goro didn’t anticipate would come from someone who was apparently one year his junior. Kurusu leant forward a little, gesturing at their table, more languid than his actual cat. “I can make you coffee.”

“Tempting.” Goro’s smile was purely defensive. “I’ll have to decline.” He waited for Morchan to perch on his shoulder before turning to leave, taking measured steps to the door to remove the impression that he was retreating. 

“I’ll see you soon, Akechi-san.”

A childish part of Goro wanted to shoot back with something just to get the last word in. Goro swallowed down the urge. It was a struggle to open the door and close it without using too much force. His chest felt almost full to bursting.

He was excited, he realized when he reached home, and his fingers were shaking visibly around his keys. Goro took a steadying breath. He shouldn’t bring emotions to a case like this, but he didn’t want Kurusu to win by default either. If he went tomorrow, perhaps he can snatch the evidence before Kurusu can get his hands on it. If there was a chance to prove himself, he will. 

Unexpectedly, he found himself smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name and circumstances of Fukiya were shamelessly borrowed from Edogawa Ranpo’s “The Psychological Test,” where the detective Akechi Kogoro makes an appearance.
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> I'm not sure if I'll try to write for the other days, but right now, at least, this is the final installment. Thank you for reading this far!


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